hero and vermont founding father ethan allen. --he was the first, then commandant of the green mountain boys. they were the largest paramilitary source in north america, if not for the actions allen. alan -- ethan >> a visit to the lake champlain maritime museum. lake itca's first great is a 140 miles long water superhighway that cuts between the green mountains of vermont and the adirondacks of new york. c-span cities tour of .urlington, vermont sunday at 2 p.m. on american history tv at c-span3 working with our cable affiliates explore america. the governors of puerto rico i'm a virgin islands testified about hurricane recovery efforts. there is also testimony from utility officials including the director of the puerto rico electrical authorities who resigned a few minutes after this hearing. we're over two months removed from when hurricane irma devastated st. thomas and john on september 6th and it's been nearly 60 days since hurricane maria hit st. croix and puerto rico. just a little over a week ago that senators cassdy, franken and i along with senator carper who was just here and senator harris as well as some of our house colleagues visited both st. thomas and puerto rico. i want to thank both governors. for your hospitality. the time i you gave us during that visit. it was incredibly important i will think for all of us to see to be on it ground and to be hearing directly from you and in those that you are working with. i know that some other members of our committee have travelled to puerto rico previously and i thank them for and that as well. what i think we certainly observed is the and you destruction is still when you consider the totalality of it recovery work that still needs to be done i think in a word it can be said one of those where do you even begin moments and i think we certainly felt that in puerto in a and rico, we felt that in he usvi. i mentioned when we and you and were there in puerto you were there in puerto rico and that i've seen my share of scale natural disasters but really nothing like this, you nothing like the scale that you see when you see an entire island that has been devastated is as we had an opportunity to be up in the air and fly over some of the impacted areas in puerto rico, it seemed like we never left an area that had not ever area been not only hit but and will devastated in terms of the impact. we've put some your posters up on the dis here. i over to the -- over and my and to my left here is a solar field that we flew over in puerto rico. you can see closer and you and i and and and and and and and will writing is a clean sleep series apartment. it was just extraordinary. below senator hinrich, you can see some of the devastation again in puerto rico. the blue tarps are certainly coming to be a symbol of the devastation that we see post hurricane, not just here in the caribbean, but certainly as we've seen the devastation following harvey in houston and in flflorida, but i think you can see just how these properties have been impacted in a way and in a manner that is just again devastating. below senator franken is an area that we toured where the road had been taken out by land slide. not only did we see this particular scene but another area where the only access to some 200 roads had been cut off by horrible land slides stranding homes on the other side. we had the opportunity to visit with another woman whose home was on the other side and she had not been able to visit her home. since the urhad cane had happened. a very, very touching story, one that i think all of us will remember for a long time. but i think we also recognized while we were in puerto rico looking at the damage from the land slides and appreciating that particularly in the interior where you have such mountainous areas that this is still the rainy season and with the number of trees that have been taken down, that slope stability during the rainy months is very uncertain and so the damage that we're seeing today may not be the it damage we're daeling with in days and weeks from now knowing that more can happen. again very, very, very sobering. and when you look at this and realize that these pictures were taken just last week, it is clear evidence that there is much, much, much to do. but as daunting as the recovery effort is, i think it's matched by the spirit of those who lived on the islands. and we saw that, we felt that. i have -- i don't know whether i'm doing promoting here or not but while we were over in puerto rico, we were reminded that there is a resiliency in the people, and members have been given a can of soda this morning that was manufactured and bottled in puerto rico with the hashtag that says where's puerto rico, which is puerto rico strong. so i thought that was pretty cool that even in the mitdest of all this, they were coming together. they were working to remind each of us of the resiliency of the people of puerto rico, people of the u.s. virgin islands that this is their home and to reif had force that we need to do what we can to epihad rebuild these islands. today's hearing will also look at ways to make the electric grid more resilient to future storms. i think we all agree it makes no sense to rebuild these grids to prestorm conditions as the stafford act currently requires. puerto rico's electric grid wassallwas already an quated befearore the storm hit. so why would we rebuild it to that standard? the other side of the aisle. congress needs to provide greater flexibility in how stafford funds can be used. i'm going to help implement that change. we also know more urhad canes will impact the islands. we're going to see poles that will break, roads and bridges that will wash out. residents will face flooding and mud slide. communities with ilbe disconnected from each other and a central grid and some of that is the reality of living on an island in a tropical location. but again the questions that we need to be probing are what can we do about it now? for right now, right now restoring electricity is the immediate priority. it's been out for far too long. and it is harming the health of both local residents and their economy. and when i say health had, i think about things like mental health. you tik about being without power for 60 days plus. think about what that means. we see pictures of kids who are trying to do their homework, using the flash light of their cell phones. but in puerto rico where we were schools were not open. schools were not open and have not been open for two months now. think about what happens just from an educational perspective. so when we talk about help, i think we need to be more expansive in our understanding of what the impact to these islands has been. these conditions are awful, they're tragic but they're also an opportunity for us to be working together to rebuild it grids in a smarter manner, whether bearing the lines where possible, direct current verses alternative, some other manner, i think we need to be looking at this going forward with a few things in mind. making the grid more resilient to future weather events and in case of damage from future storm, bringing that time frame for repair on the grid on par to what we see here in the united states. i think we recognize that anyone of the 50 states here, whether you are on the mainland or, like hawaii or alaska apart from the continental united states, nowhere would we accept the fact that the people, the residents have been without power for two months, particularly the numbers of people that we're talking about. but also we need to be working to bring down the overall cost of electricity, certainly compared to prestorm prices. we're fortunate to be joined by vaer distinguished panel this morning and we will have an equally distinguished panel as this one concludes. but these folks are here today to epihad us better understand the conditions on the ground, what more needs to be done at the federal level and what a future electric grid could be like like. i turn to senator cantwell for her opening remarks and look forward to a very informative discussion. drinking water and delivering adequate health care. this is onacceptable. the united states is a strong nation, needs to take care of its citizens and approximately 3.4 million united states citizens and over 100,000 united states citizens face challenges as we speak. the federal government needs to do more and it needs to plan in advance. inhad in ineckwtable treatment under medicaid and the tax code have dramatically harmed these economies. as a result they have suffered from economic contractions in recent years. in response to puerto rico's debt crisis, congress pazzed legislation from 2016. to be clear, i did not support that legislation. one of the reasons why is because it favored more of the interests of the hedge fund share holders than the taxpayers. but by far the most far reaching impact is to our electricity grid and this administration which has been responsible for restoring the electricity grid along with local partners needs to do more for the people of puerto rico. i welcome mr. walker here today, i supported your nomination and you and i'm sure you are it right man to epihad but youicide hear loud and clear that we need do more. the white fish contract or in puerto rico raised particular concerns. it homeland security reviewing the matter and according to a wall street journal report the fbi is also investigating. the florida workers contracted by whitefish were paid $42 on an hour, lineman 63 and yet whitefish billed the government of utility $319 an hour. even if that were figure is abnormally high because it ifcluded absorbitant charges for room and board, why would a contract specify a separate charge for room and board? it welfare of the puerto rico people to rebuild the island is my number one concern but i will not stop making sure that the u.s. taxes payer is not gouged in this process. let's be very clear about this. the reason why my state has many storms and many natural disasters, the reason why you have mutual aid contracts is to rebuild at cost. that is what a mutual aid contract is. rebuilding at cost. so the notion that someone comes in there to gouge the puerto rican government and the u.s. taxpayer charging them an exorbitant rate and writing a contract so it can't be reviewed properly was a great ifjustice to the u.s. taxpayer. when you look at how the situation occurred, we must understand it federal government here also feeds change its process. i have seen this time and time aagain in my state whether it's fire or a mud slide or failed communication systems can't even be restored to communicate to the public because someone is saying who will pay for this. so in the gap puerto rico made decision to go with an entity that gouged the u.s. taxpayers. it should have been clear from the very beginning that fema and the u.s. government would pay on those contracts and it should have been done with mutual aid at cost. so we're going to get to the bottom of this. if it takes a long time. why? because we never want to see this happen again. we do not want be to a country where interests of the private sector are patrolling the u.s. economy, looking for a disaster and then saying i'm going to go in there and capitalize on it. people should read and understand case law. case law on price gouging was this very instance. in a blizzard in the northeast someone came in and tried to charge more for snow blowers. why? because they knew people to buy them. so we're not going to put up with this kind of move behavior in the united states of america. when people are in a crisis and a disaster, the u.s. government have had responded and said they would be there to restore it utility grid and do it at cost and thereby get the support. so we'll have lots of time for questions. there is a fundamental problem with removing the authority of the grid from it people and handing it over to an unelected oversight board. this was brought up in a court case yesterday. the mission is to achieve fiscal responsibility and access capitol markets which means playing nice with bond holders. this is not our priority, which is getting the lights back on and preventing a continuing humanitarian crisis. so those are the things we must understand as this debate continues. only a strong independent regulator can assure consumers pay low prices, they move towards a sustainable business model and that will be a very long process. i know our colleagues want to talk about how we modernize this for the future. but in the meantime i'm going to make sure the u.s. taxpayer is well protected and we do anything we can to flatten any kind of process that exists between bureaucracy and the government of puerto rico to make sure they're not having to pay 20 questions about financial assistance and aid. the answer should be yes and we should be doing it at cost. i look forward to hearing from our thank you, senator cantwell. our first panel this morning will be led off by the governor of puerto rico. the honorable ricardo nuvarez. he will be followed by the governor of the u.s. virgin islands, the honorable kenneth mack, we welcome you. mr. bruce walker is the assistant secretary for it office of electricity, delivery and inhad aerj reliability at the u.s. department energy. i will noette he as been on the job here for about a month, i believe and as soon as he was sworn in, he was sent to puerto rico or he volunteered to go to puerto rico and has been there much of the time and on the ground. so i think we'll have a great deal to share with us this morning. and we're also joined by major general donald e. jackson jr. the deputy commanding civil for it u.s. army core of engineer that has been tasked to address the grid system there. in puerto rico. so gentleman, we welcome you to the committee. observe governor governors, we certainly appreciate that you have travelled to be with us this morning and appreciate your time. ank you, chairman markowsdki and ranking member cantwell. i would also like to give special thanks to senator mar kousky and all the members of both house and senate who have taken the time to come to puerto rico and bare witness to the island. it is impossible to describe the fury and vileance to the people who did not experience. causing the full failure of the power grid, major damage to our water systems. airports rendered unuseable. roads and bridges were washed away and virtually all communications systems were shut down. i was there when we to rescue 2,000 people from roof tops when flooding reached massive proportions several hours after the hurricane hit. i saw mothers carrying their in infant infants. i had to drive several hours northwest and through the mountainous regions to warn folks their dams could collapse because there's no other way to communicate no phones, no radio, no water, no power. no business is open, lit logical access to roads. i flew over parts of puerto rico that look like a category 5 hurricane went through it. others looked like a bomb was dropped. i personally took food, water and medicine to people who had lost their homes. not with standing these challenges, we are resilient and making progress. we are moving from life sustainment to the recovery. water restoration is now at 90%. telecommunications is at 75%. almost all supermarkets and gas stations are opened. i called for an aggressive milestone to make sure we could do everything humanly possible to power puerto rico as quickly as possible and tomorrow we will have met our second milestone of restoring 50% of the energy grid by november 15th. 59 of the 60 -- 58 of the 68 hospitals are connected to the grid and we have started to stead a elopen schools. now we have 839 that are open. it is important to note that this event has no parallel in american modern history. with risk models categorizing this as a storm that caused 90 to 100$100 billion in damages. this was a total catastrophe. we have twin storms blasted through another state. a catastrophe would have inhad sued as well. i became governor with the challenging task of misplaced priorities and sufficient leadership. as you're aware long before the hurricane season had started in puerto rico and its people been battered by demographic challenges, i've worked tirelessly since taking office just 10 months ago embarking on an aggressive agenda. within six months, my administration has obtained it approval of the 10-year fiscal plan. although we've had our differences with it board, we have worked together. in addition we also implemented an aggressive array of policies for economic and social growth including a gold standard -- pensions reform and are currently working on a new government down sizing model procurement, reform and the transformation of the electric utility. even during the recovery and restoration process, we are focussed on developing a plan for future electric energy in puerto rico. we're working with members of the governing board to bring together top minds and provide best in class thinking on the future. and evaluating are options including public or private ownership, or a combination for the long term. we aim to revamp completely the delivery of electric energy in puerto rico. this includes aggressively incorporating alternative energy sources, creating frameworks for distributed energy sources, virtual power plants, and developing a robust regulatory framework that creates the right market and competitive signals to insure it's delivered reliably and at a sustainable -- i call on congress to approve an emergency supplemental registration that provides equal registration compared to what any state would have experienced. attached to my written testimony i have provided an extensive analysis and documentation of the devastation of the hurricanes and the federal resources necessary to build a more resilient puerto rico. worked along with third-party groups and organizations. in doing this i am had committed -- i commit to you today that i will lead the most transparent disaster reconstruction in american history. towards that end i have issued an executive order for the office which has been tasked with the suring full accountability for all state and federal funds directed towards the island reconstruction. the foster of accountability. we will create a recovery portal that will not only track the set of the recovery but provide information to the public about how and where the funds have been used. this great country of ours has always prided itself on leadership, moral values and principals. it has also responded to extraordinary times. the whole world is watching. it is time to show we mean what we say. it's almost one and only one. it is time for our homeland to show we can walk the talk. as governor of puerto rico but more so as a proud u.s. citizen of this great country, i ask you to once again rise to the call as you have done so many times before. thank you, god bless you, god bless puerto rico and god bless america.... thank you, governor. governor mack, welcome to the committee. i waunt to thank it vice president for coming and seeing first hand the devastation in our territory and speaking with our citizens. i'd like the acknowledge in the audience today members of my legislature that are here led by the president, myron jackson and members of the cabinet as wel. but first and foremost on behalf of the more than 100 thousand resilient americans living in the united states virgin islands, let me convey our heart felt gratitude and appreciation for the concern so many fellow americans have shown to us during this difficult time. from the great leadership and support of our president to you, madam chair and the many members of the house and senate who came to see the devastation first hand to better understand the conditions we are living in, we thank you. we also thank fema for the unwaving support of our ongoing critical needs in the virgin islands and thank our my federal coordinating officer for his support in her work in helping people of the territory. is the responsible was perfect? no. but neither is the rediction of the outcome of a natural disaster. to our country, to our fellow citizens, to our national government the people of the virgin islands say thank you. of course, i didn't travel here today to only express gratitude. i came here before you to personally ask for your help and your support in recovering. these storms brought 185 mile-per-hour winds that ripped leaves from the trees. pulling up century-old trees by their roots and turning our green hillsides black. utility polls snapped like match sticks and over 400 boats sunk in our harbor. nine schools, our two main hospitals and related health facilities, fire stations and police stations. were so badly damaged they had to be condemned. it delivery of our airport and governor -- government offices are unusable and has impacted the delivery of vital government services. simple things we normally take frogranted. running water, cell phone services, electricity. a hot meal, remain unavailable to many of our citizens. more than 15,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. and virtually all of our power distribution was wiped out. power remains limited with power connections across the virgin islands at a mere 27%. on the island of st. john, our residents only started seeing power for it first time last week. can you imagine a community here on the mainland going without power for over six weeks? in addition to the physical destruction it's gren our economy has ground to a near halt those that have reopened have reopened with significantly reduced services. and many private sector workers have not returned to work. damage to our economy has created unsustainable cash shortfalls that we will experience now and if to the future. we have estimated that economic losses and tourism stand at more than $1.7 billion over the next three years. damage to commercial facilities stand at almost $1 billion. our recovery from these islands will take time and it will begin with a full understanding of the damages caused. we estimate to exceed 7 $1/2 billion dollars. i have requested that amount in federal disaster assistance to address our most essential needs to return to normalcy. virgin islanders are resilient but we must do more to make our islands resilient. unless you want to see me come back here after the next major hurricane devastation of america america's paradise, we must build it back stronger and more sustainable than before. we must build it back stronger and more resilient to protect our citizens and the investment and consider our power distribution network. while we are optimistic that will be nearly fully restored by christmas but this. is the fifth time that the u.s. paying to rebuild this power distribution system in the virgin islands. we've already taken basic steps to improve the resiliency of the grid and to build it back using with your help, we plan to bury power lines on the primary and secondary road systems throughout the territory. and invest in a microgrid system that will add renewable generation capacity like solar and wind energy. it's not just power lines we need to approach maria completely devastated our our two main hospitals and affiliated health care facilities. today critical care is unavailable in the virgin islands. a critically ill patient in the u.s. virgin islands cannot receive care there. critical patients and persons requiring dialysis must be flown to the u.s. mainland for care. we were doing that after irma in puerto rico. butted now that our neighbor has been impacted, patients are now flown to atlanta, texas and florida. the funds we're seeking will help rebuild two main hospitals on st. croix, helping the u.s. virgin islands recover health care funding in the virgin islands was under great stress even before the two hurricanes. arbitrary low,o federal matching rates has imposed a hardship on the government finances. the virgin islands is disadvantaged because of the centers of medicare and medicaid services using decades-old benchmarks and methodologies. our hospitals see schedules are based on it 1989 fee schedule. reimbursing of these publicly on hospitals have caused great stress to the front desk government. >> i'm going to ask you to start wrapping up here. >> sure. safety we havec lost our fire stations, emergency operations centers for disasters. universities have been heavily damaged. while we appreciate the efforts of fema, these may only protect homes from further damage. this program is not covering people that live in homes without frames and without --. with each rainfall families are being harmed. citizens,ns, american have suffered losses dislocation and stress in the way of this. our recovery will be long and difficult. we understand and accept our responsibility, but we cannot do it alone. we cannot squander this opportunity to rebuild a better and stronger and more resilient virgin islands. if we rebuild quickly we will probe -- continue the suffering. with your support that will not happen. thank you for listening and thank you for supporting your fellow american citizens in the u.s. virgin islands. falsew that your statement along with everyone will be included as part of the record. >> good morning. i would like to thank the chairman and ranking member and the members of this committee. full would like to enter my written testimony into the record so i can convey my thoughts regarding the time spent on the island. i would like to discuss three topics. realized ins that i my attending the virgin islands as well as puerto rico, the challenges that were faced, and the opportunities we have going forward, speaking specifically to a number of the things both governors mansion. successes. the leadership provided by the two government -- governors sitting next to me was fantastic and the heart felt strength of the citizens of both virgin islands and puerto rico was amazing. the column on the island was outstanding. the key challenges are continuing to be met with the leadership provided by the governors, there were two critical components with the restoration that i think are worth noting. limitedne,, with the cruise that we had, made an early decision to have to type the southern portion where the northernn this to the portion where they made the lineion to construct the from the south bringing it up to the san juan area. on the map you can see from down here, wrapping up throughout that line is up here over to hear. ist was important about that that one decision and the efforts made with limited enabled the power to be distributed to where the load was and in conjunction with the other big decision which is the next slide, the army corps to generators at the plant cap. that enable power to be distributed to the northern portion. were two efforts monumental given the facts and circumstances. the installation of this generator with electing of the , and theat the install work that had to be done with incredible. withd fantastic support the coordination with the army corps. lastly, the work of the federal coordinating officer's oath in others,in islands and the court nation that was set forth by fema was outstanding in an effort to drive and work with the leadership provided by the two governors to my right. the challenges, the mountainous terrain was a key component where there was stress in trying to rebuild the transmission system. lack of generation in the north the system related -- necessitated the work to be done. we were successful in trying to mobilize all of the things necessary, people and material to get down and. the amount of fiber optics only as theyere a challenge increase the wind shear and therefore the damage to the polls. three substations were inundated to the point where they were not able to be energized. at a very high level we have mobilize the grid mobilization consortium to look at work that has been previously done by others. . looking specifically at things like relied -- with improved since we capabilities. micro-grid opportunities. and startedooked at the process to install 200 on puerto rico. there was a location where we provided generation for supplies, and we have 400 other and addingehind that additional micro-grid opportunities. we will begin looking at them in the virgin islands as well. there is a flood mitigation , we are looking at that for the reconstructions of those 18 flood stations. do -- utilizing nolo to to utilize wind the stations, using the mountains as shielding's for the design. we are looking at the modeling in order that when we have to replace substations we don't put them in an area that would be in an eight -- inundated going forward. we had the opportunity to develop the black net and do lessig here. the transmission system would rebuilt.eded to be there are some basic structural components that we had the opportunity to do. -- doing anfolks at investigation on power , most of those were standing throughout the island. these towers are anchored differently than the other towers. there are some structural improvements that are available to us. the modification of the fiber optics and other attachments on the polls is something we have an opportunity to look at. thank you for the opportunity to get they my thoughts -- convey my thoughts. >> general jackson. on behalf of the army corps of engineers thanks for the opportunity to testify. public law, act in we support fema under the national response framework as the lead agency. it provides temporary emergency power, debris management, infrastructure assessment, and temporary housing. under public law 489 we prepare state,asters with local, and federal partners, assisting them with advanced measures. repairing damage to authorized federal projects. are disasters occur teams resourced throughout the command to assist. as part of this mission, the train -- 50s trained teams. use contracts that can be activated for mission such as temporary power and temporary roofing. supported fema in support of multiple events including the hurricanes in the caribbean. they continue to be involved in response operations in texas and louisiana and florida and also in california. currently the core has over 1900 personnel employed in the region. this morning, the core has inpleted 1300 assessments the caribbean, 270 assessments and 156 generator installations and the virgin island and 600 generator installations in puerto rico. we have over 550 soldiers, civilians and contractors dedicated to emergency power alone and puerto rico. 3300 in the u.s. virgin islands and 80 had -- 8700 and puerto rico. we have adjusted or added capacity and will continue just see improvements in locations. experts are providing federal assistance. we are working to move an estimated one million yards of cubic debris in the virgin island and were in puerto rico. they were closely with the coast guard and administration. additionally the core team tested outflow conduit and try to reduce water levels in the dam. the court was given a fema mission assignment under stafford act authority to conduct emergency repairs to the grid itself. they are partnering with them in this effort. hasdepartment of energy experts and continue to advise and assist in assisting this effort. there are not treated awarded contracts for this effort. the core has installed a planttt temporary power in san juan. we procured over $170 million in materials that are flowing into the island today. we contracted for 200 additional line repair crews that are flowing into the island to assist. we awarded a contract for 25 megawatt temporary power plant that will be installed to assist a crippled facility. to core remains committed activities across the nation as part of involvement in these ongoing response operation. we remain ready for future events as they occur. i look forward to answering any questions you may have. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for her testimony. we will now have a opportunity for five-minute rounds of questioning. to youto direct this first. one of the things that impressed me when we were in the u.s. virgin islands, you relate to us or shared with me that this is now your safe hurricane. you have a little bit of experience dealing with that ins, you indicated anticipation of hurricane irma coming your way, you effectively and cute things that's so that in the event that you were here -- hit, you could move forward to push and with a request for mutual aid. i indicated that it alleges to move quickly to remove debris and really get to work in an area that had been devastated. we are looking at this hearing what wenly learn about where we right and have stumbled of this effort and also how to move forward. that is one thing as i looked at in puerto rico, the government -- the it was not mutually implemented immediately. i heard many times as we were traveling there that in fact the real recovery did not begin until one month later, october 30, when the mutual aid switch was flipped and the effort really began. thernor, can you share with committee why neutral a was not advanced immediately? thehank you again for opportunity. let me take you initially that washe time frame the two twin storms. we first got here at that juncture there were some , forsts for information contractors to come to puerto rico to attend to some of the challenges that we had. forward tooking theoring -- restarting energy grid without looking at the moment where we would have another storm. believe after irma that the damage was sufficient to have invoked mutual aid or you can handle that on your own? >> the results are there, the power authority picked up from to 95% energy restoration before maria hit. there was work in progress being made. authority had been working on alternative mechanisms to bring more support to the island. maria, and i have to define what were the first is immediately afterwards. of the vastowledge damage that was done in puerto rico because we had no communication. i know it is hard to put yourself in that situation, but puerto rico is a relatively takes aland, it simply couple hours to travel it. at that point, we had no communications, which we had expected to have. all of the roads were basically blocked. our effort immediately after the storm were to assess the situation, get contact and establish local -- logistics going forward. right after this storm as i mentioned in my initial statement, emergencies ensued. -- evenally had to go under martial law, i had to mobilize police officers at the national guard from wherever they work so we could rescue people that were at risk of drowning. more watcher came through it as well. after that came the devastation or the potential announcement of the devastation in the dam for which we have no communications with the mayors and people of that township. , it took usin a car so weours round-trip could warn the local authorities, the mayors of what was going on. >> i am interrupting only because i'm out of time. that a the question great deal of immediate urgency to save human life, but in retrospect would it have not been wiser to do as we saw in push send andands request that mutual aid? this.spoke about all of those components in the decision-making that went into that. i want to add an element. when we were making that decision about bringing some of the additional assets to puerto rico, we have the offer from the corps of engineers that would allow us to restore the energy grid very quickly and immediately as was stated to us initially and that we did not have to have a cost-sharing to do so. puerto rico is in a fiscal predicament and we have little liquidity to move forward. having those alternatives we chose under the understanding that things were going to pick up quickly, that the energy grid would be restored within 45 days , which shows the alternative at both fema and the corps of engineers posed to us, and in collaboration so that we can get going. >> we all have a lot of questions. >> you are right about that. that whereake sure we are right now, i appreciate everyone's testimony and work at solving the problems. everything working seamlessly now as a relates to the army that and to everything needs to happen or do we still need streamlining? >> let me say two things. i was notic record satisfied with the original deployment of the corps of engineers. we were under the impression that this was going to start immediately, that we were on a 45 day time frame, otherwise we would have looked for other alternatives. having said that, and thanks to several meetings we have had, we now have three daily meetings on was is going on with the energy that includes the doe, includes the corps of engineers, some of the stakeholders so we can push forward and meet the aggressive standards we have four puerto rico. satisfied,i was not i am hopeful this new mechanism can allow us to get to our objectives. what i asked the senate is to keep serving, to keep hearing us out and as it pertains to the past week, there has been an , morese in communication deployment of personnel to stated, ourand as i objective, to get 50% by november 15 looks like we are right on target. >> thank you. mr. walker, what do you do about ? here we are, trying to make this work from a perspective of restoring the grid and we have a bondholder lean. makeare you going to do to sure that taxpayer dollars are not just going to wall street? >> thank you for the question. during my time in puerto rico that was a question that came up working with fema and the fema lawyers. they work through mechanisms where they feel confident the mechanisms that are being made in the system during the emergency restoration will not be attachable as they are grants. it is a better question to be answered by a fema expert. much aboutarn as female roles as i could when i was in puerto rico -- i do learn about -- i had to learn as much about fema rules as i could in puerto rico. they believe that money will be protected. >> do you believe we need further structure by you or others in integration with proper -- with prepa? bondholders were trying to wrangle these organizations away from the government. what does the administration prepae, if you're saying has the full oversight it needs are you are saying doe? >> i think if congress appropriates money for permanent work, people will have to make decisions and congress will have to make decisions with regards to how that money is allocated and who is responsible. if the congress approves or appropriates money. prepa needselieve r oversight by you? >> no. i think they are ready -- i think they are uniquely qualified to get it up and running. person who spent much time in the sector prior to the administration? >> i spent my entire life there and work closely with the man on the next panel restoring the systems. there were significant challenges in making the decisions to restore the system. prepa rose to the challenge and made the decisions. noted, gotrnment almost 50% of the system. inyou are standing by prepa this in moving forward and you will work with us on the larger issue of making sure this is -- this is not the last disaster we are going to see. i think we need to work hard to make sure the situation where somebody came in and took advantage of the gaps that existed between not having this full fema commitment and not having -- and the fact that made a-- that prepa decision. we had our constituents down during the enron crisis. utilities that had a must serve requirements signed up for those exorbitant rates. we were going to be the deep pockets in bankruptcy. i want to make sure we are stopping this kind of behavior. we are going to see many more disasters and we should put the word out. we are not going to be involved in this kind of price couching by somebody coming in and taking advantage of a disaster. >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. >> senator? >> i will return to the second panel with my questions on prepa? senator franken and i have had this conversation, what can you do to make your great governor -- by the way, thank you for your hospitality -- more resilient? you can have a system of renewables and some sort of faxed acting -- some sort of fast acting for when the sun does not shine. we went to a tesla facility and they lay out a nice array but it has rained every day since they put it out and their battery has not charged and they were running it constantly. that shows the limitation of the distributed energy. important, useful, but limited. can i ask, this may be a , what degreeprepa can your current fossil fuel facilities serve as backup in case there is a need for electrons on the grid? i can wait for the next panel if need be. do we know how much it would cost to upgrade the facility to make that operational going forward? in the long-term? long-term i would pass that question to the prepa director. -- mr.i ask the progress walker, you show the pictures of those long-term transmission lines across the mountains. what is the process of getting those and where are we? thes far as i know, both 230 lines are scheduled to be complete by the end of november. >> what percent of the island now has power back? >> 49% today. >> san juan looked good when we were there, relatively speaking. other communities less so. >> we have had ups and downs. we've had significant rain of ants. as we stated -- we have had significant rain events. we had a goal by november and we are poised to achieve that. was the utility level renewables did not do that well. rails.the busted wind the solar powers on rooftops were the thing. it seemed as if those were intact. is that a correct impression? >> that is exactly what i observed. depending on where the solar panels were located and how they were situated with regard to the wind flow determined how well they fared for the storm. mr. walker, you spoke about some of these switching stations being inundated, was that by rain or flood? >> both. >> i'm going to ask something stupid. , i cane rain inundated imagine a flood because it fills up from the bottom. rain comes down from the top and it seems if a shield would have kept that protected unless the shield blue over -- unless the shield blew over. rain -- it washe the accumulation of rain in these channels that went into the substations. >> was that a design flaw? >> many of these stations have been there for many years. >> the upgrading your speaking of what address this? >> yes. specifically. mayor, i am not ignoring the u.s. virgin islands, it is just that your problems seem more manageable than puerto rico. want to answerid your question about the upgrade of the power situation in the virgin islands. the upgrade would be about $830 million. in the renewables, we had two experiences. renewables on the hillsides by one vendor on one island worked perfectly. that entire field, maybe 2% damaged. on another island was a different vendor and the vendor for the district court completely emasculated. >> st. croix was unaffected? >> st. croix suffered immediately in her came are you and st. john's and st. thomas suffered in hurricane maria. the point i am trying to make is that part of the issue with these solar panels are clearly how they are installed and who installs them. survivability in 175 mile an hour winds across one island, and then on the same thend a mile away with different vendor, completely destroyed st. thomas. >> that is intriguing, but i am over time. i yield back. >> thank you. >> thank you, madam chair. i want to recognize the congresswoman from the virgin islands who is joining us. governor, i am going to allow you to expand on the same line of questions. have you been able to determine what the characteristics of that survivability were so that we can make sure that in future installations that is incorporated? >> not as yet. this particular entity that is the third-party provider, their panels for their private clients also seem to survive very well. that indicates to us that in people, we these have to be careful in terms of how they are installing them and what systems they are using because we have that different experience. like there is something in the engineering we need to ascertain what that is and make sure any future installations learn those lessons. governor, i wanted to ask you, you said the hurricane was an unprecedented catastrophe for puerto rico. given the antiquated nature of the pre-hurricane grid, it is an opportunity to create a much better, more resilient electrical grid for your constituents. in a newwant to see grid in terms of generation, transmission, distribution, what would you like that to look like? be anould like it to opportunity for us to leapfrog from 19th century technology to the 21st century. what does that look like in puerto rico? we have several flaws in terms aside fromgn, antiquated power plants. most of our generation is done in the south and most of the people are in the north. you lose about 12% in the transmission. to rethinkportunity where we have that generation and make it better. piggybacking on senator cassidy's comments, i think it is an opportunity to leapfrog in renewables. i envision us leapfrogging to 25% renewables in puerto rico and recognizing there are some strategies we need to put in place. that is why we have worked with governing board to have a group of leaders that can help us in the design and looking where this could happen. lots of events in puerto rico are important. it is important to consider the terrain -- puerto rico is not flat. we will be aggressively pursuing that we get to 90, 90 5% energy consumption and generation. last 5% always takes more time because there are remote areas of the island. this is an opportunity to make micro-grids so they can be sustained in different areas and adding to this component of renewables, i think it is an opportunity to look at this from a bottom-up and a top-down approach. with the collaboration of fema, we were able to allow a power plant generator to be added to the house or a renewable battery pack solar consul added to those homes in the step program. we expect there will be about 80,000 homes that will be introduced in the step program. half of them decide to go with a renewable battery -- that means now you have the starting conditions to think about things like a virtual power plant in puerto rico where you can have smart distribution of the energy and where some days it might be cloudy in some areas, it will be sunny in others, that energy can be distributed alongside a complement of utility sized and industrial sides generation which i envision should start transitioning from petroleum generation, which is costly and harmful, 28 gas generation. generation. when you have retail electric , that gives mid-20 you room to build that clean grid because when you have ppa agreements being signed in the per kilowattcents hour, that creates some opportunities to do that in a way that serves your constituents without gouging them. i think it is an opportunity based on that margin. the governor has the same problem, that can become an opportunity. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you, madam chair. governors, thank you for your leadership. thank you for your leadership and very challenging times. see you again.to it was a meaningful visit to puerto rico in the days following the hurricane and to have the opportunity to see what had happened to our fellow , this congress is committed to continued solutions and partnerships. i apologize for stepping out, i had a foreign relations committee vote. i've may have missed this when you discussed this in your opening statements. what should prepa look like in five years, what should it look like in 10 years? prepa.eed to transform everyone is in accordance. before the storm we had a strategy moving forward great it was a longer-term strategy based on natural obstacles. switching some of these power plants and so forth. catastrophe, the if we look at this as a window of opportunity to make it look better. it is a phenomenal opportunity for the people of puerto rico. i certainly see collaboration with the private sector. it needs to be fleshed out and developed. we need to look at the best interests of the people of puerto rico to work for that solution. we have a gold stranded structure in puerto rico which can be powerful. we are not opposed to other alternatives. mind, is there anything off the table when it comes to prepa and its organization? nothing, as long as the objective stays the same which is producing reliable energy at competitive costs. -- and ahis should be cleaner energy paradigm for the people of puerto rico. those are the critical components. the tactical strategies might be shifting, i spoke about those higher level, but we are committed to doing results for the people of puerto rico. we are an outcome driven administration. >> you mentioned this -- the commonwealth's objective is to have 50% renewable energy by 2040. storm, less than 2% was derived from renewables. is this 50% goal realistic and how can we achieve the goal? out by anotherd person in another panel. what we are looking at is the current opportunity to increase to about 20% to 25% renewables right now in puerto rico. what that longer-term path, post one-year looks like depends what is the resiliency of the system, how does it work with some of our other needs and so forth. right now, in the short to midterm, we see an opportunity to leapfrog and what are renewable growth effort was and get to 20% to 25%. >> thank you. my comments about puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands stand in terms of what we do to complete the process. i am probably going to summit questions on the record for you. i need to get mr. walker before we run out of time. your experience with disasters as a key qualification for the appointment you are receiving. it seems like we picked the right guy at the right time. how are these skills being put to use in puerto rico. we talked about the resources, the rapid response, laboratory participation, how are we moving forward with that and moving towards a resilience in puerto rico? i spoke about opportunities that are being taken advantage of, focusing on building the resiliency, lowering the cost of electricity and driving economic growth. as the government just noted, we converted the step where graham to be able to change out generators, with the opportunity to put in solar with battery pack, recognize there is cost avoidance in maintaining the generator but also providing long-term strategies. >> i'm about out of time. the last question is what you need from this committee specifically to move forward? >> i do not eat anything immediately because all the things that are necessary are being done. we have mobilized the lab consortium already. we have people working on specific projects. we have invoked the national hurricane service to do wind substations and the integration of solar farms on the mainland of puerto rico and the virgin islands, talking about what governor mapp mentioned earlier. as we are moving forward and if congress decides to appropriate dollars for permanent work, a number of other things may come out of that based on the planning the governors are doing. >> thank you for leading the delegation in puerto rico and the virgin islands. governor, i had a different take away than senator cassidy on the tesla array at the children's hospital. it seemed to me that they were, during the day, operating the hospital using the solar array, which they admitted was not big enough for the space that was there, but that powers the hospital during the day and did fill up the battery and the battery lasted until about midnight, until it was down to 20%. was that your understanding? >> the average time they were working with -- it was a couple of days with a lot of rain that they were obviously getting some energy -- it was about 20 to 21 hours a day that i was working under the solar panel battery system. >> and then they had generators after that. two weekends ago we went down to puerto rico. last weekend i visited some minnesotans from puerto rico who want this done and the rebuilding done in a resilient .ay as i think everybody on the , and in a way that and fiscalonmental sense and the federal government must do everything it can to assist. the importance of resilience here is that we know we are going to see these storms, we know this is a once in a 200 year to a thousand year storm. with climate change, that is not going to be the case anymore. we know that with rising sea level, you're going to see stronger surges, stronger storm surges. we need to build a resilient grid because these are going to be happening again. as the climate continues to warm, they are going to get more powerful. stronger, build a more resilient grid. i want to talk about that. we have been talking about a vision of this, how we do that. one of the things i want to ask about is the stafford act. if we are rebuilding this under the stafford act, i was wondering anybody's thoughts on this, about the changes in the stafford act that are necessary better -- is the administration aware that, mr. walker, any thoughts on that? >> i can comment on that as well. there is two critical components. you need to be flexible. if you have a state that has a modern system and it comes out, then the stafford act makes sense because you just put something back that was already bought. if you're investing money in something that is going to come down again, it is not the best use for that money. i would add that the component of causation, there is an element of trying to evaluate how much damage was done prior to the storm because of the storm, or because of maintenance issues. here is the reality -- >> i do not have much time and i want to hear from others. >> i will comment on that. think about building stronger and better because it prevents future costs for reconstruction in communities like the virgin islands and puerto rico. the fund components will be difficult in terms of its restrictions and administrative waivers. we will have a difficult time meeting our match at $800 million or $900 million to have the reconstruction done as is or -- as opposed to doing mitigation or resiliency. those two issues should build back and should give some additional flexibility. >> before i run out of time, the one thing that has not been raised, it has been raised in terms of we want the power to be less costly. my understanding is it was $.27 per kilowatt hour -- $.27 to $.29 per kilowatt hour for the u.s. virgin islands. >> that is outrageous. if we want to keep manufacturing there, 10% of our pharmaceuticals come from puerto rico. we want those to stay there. about buildinggs this more resilient and sustainable and renewable is we can drive that cost down and the second largest cost for those pharmaceutical manufacturers is energy. thosewant to keep businesses there, we want to keep those professionals there who are working on that, we need to build a much better grid that does not run on diesel. there is a place for natural that we also for solar make resilient and for wind. thank you. >> thank you, senator franken. send early -- senator lee? >> we begin today's hearing with a certain amount of knowledge. we know a lot about what is going on with prepa. expert opinion testimony has identified a laundry list of concerns with prepa's management and operation. let me list a few. staff have been hired without regard to experience and expertise, resulting in the failure of multiyear projects. we have seen widespread theft of power and billing failures. we have seen a lot of outdated infrastructure that has resulted in an abnormally unacceptably high late of forced and prolonged outages. we have generation units that are technologically outdated, requiring the reliance on expensive fuel. we have procurement practices a largee focused is number of small vendors, with payments going out to over 14,000 individual entities. corruption and mismanagement have been a problem and they of late prepa -- and they have plagued prepa for decades. if we do not start exercising oversight of every dollar spent with regard to these entities, we could be looking at decades of ongoing problems and dire financial situations and decades of geo j corruption prosecutions. corruptionof doj prosecutions. people think the story stops and ends with white fish. white fish is important -- it exemplifies what has become all too common in puerto rico and the virgin islands. a system in which public draft and economic corruption have been common. it does not take a biologist to see that a white fish does not swim alone. , i bet weout a net will find a school of similar contracts with boatloads of , withts, with graft greed, all the expense of hard-working families. i want to look for ways we can address this. rossello, i would like to start with you and make reference to the false claims act. the false claims act was put in place during the civil war error from provisions we refer to -- from provisions allowing private citizens to bring suit on behalf of the united states in the name of the united states for billing fraud. -- would you ask -- would you object to an amendment of the federal false claims act and allow things like that to be brought by citizens in such a way that we define puerto rico -- we define the united states to include puerto rico -- in other words to define the united states to include territories including puerto rico such that billing fraud cases could be addressed through the provisions of the federal false claims act? closerhing that gets us to behavior and treatment of the u.s. citizens of puerto rico, for the u.s. citizens that live anywhere else in the united states, i support. having not looked in detail at your proposal, what i will say in terms of a broad statement is i am -- the vast majority of citizens in puerto rico are willing to be full participants as u.s. citizens in all respects. do not see anything about amending the federal false claims act? >> what i would ask is for equal treatment in general. let's get equal treatment for the people of puerto rico in response to the claim. i want to answer some of the previous senator. i've been in office 10 months and iran on a platform of transparency, recognizing their of been decades of reckless theiror, but recognizing of been good serving people in puerto rico. our administration has been breaking records in terms of how many reforms we have established. one of those reforms we are working on is the procurement roof your -- the procurement reform. fish situation came about, i took action immediately. i called for an investigation, i called for any investigation so light could be shed on that matter. procurementa compliance officer that will be working on the concepts of that procurement reform for puerto rico. we are committed to transparency. that is why what we are when puerto rico starts rebuilding, we are going to do this transparently, we are due this -- we going to do this with controls. we are working with the white house for controls and transparency. we are willing participants. >> i do want to be clear. fraud against puerto rico as a territory of the united states is fraught against the united states and should be covered by the false claims act. treatment.as equal >> i would like does minutes to respond to set an early. lee. respond to senator we prosecute customers who steal electricity and water. we prosecute employees involved in theft. we are in our third year where we bid each year services for alignment if there is a disaster so we do not have to do that in a hurricane. this year, we simply pulled the trigger. we do that for debris removal, we do that for road clearing. cost ofaking sure the power in the territory is what it costs to produce power and distribute it. ,e have no tolerance for graft for theft, for our employees being involved to enrich themselves whether in the water and power authority or in the central government. you can be assured that any of this money we provide, we will assure that contract with vendors have clauses, we require bonds to protect the people of the territory and the people of the country. we need your help for the reconstruction but we do what -- we do not want any obstruction on the premise we are planning to enrich ourselves or use graft or underhand activity in the procurement process. you have my personal assurance that will not happen while i am sitting in the office of the governor. >> thank you, governor. >> thank you, madam chair, and thank you to the panelists here. nevadave constituents in who have loved ones in puerto rico and are just as concerned about puerto rico but the virgin islands. we are doing everything we can to help the people. let me start with something my colleague senator franken brought up. my understanding, under the theford act, that limits use of federal disaster relief funds for repairing or replacing a public facility or private nonprofit the silly on the basis asthe design of the facility the facility existed immediately before the major disaster. my understanding of that is all of the talk i have heard today, which is important talk about buryingastructure, lines, looking at how we at renewable capacity, that is something that is not going to be addressed through the funding through the relief that comes from the federal government. is that correct? is that your understanding? >> that is my understanding. we are doing emergency restoration work now. a number of things that have not been mentioned -- if the congress approves additional appropriations, those will be opportunities we could further build. you're askingt congress today -- additional appropriations outside the stafford act to be able to set up new infrastructure and do what we have heard today? tother hurricane is going come through, or some other disaster. it is just the way the climate is. is that the ask today from the governors? >> to amend that, could you repeat the question? act limits the amount of money are getting from the federal government for disaster relief to repair and reconstruct, it is not for new construction or new types of renewable energies. are you coming for additional funds outside the stafford act, outside of disaster relief? >> yes. a systemfford if connected to the power generation is not damaged, it cannot be touched. if it is cost effective, it can be mitigated. the power system is connected. if we want to change to more efficient renewables, wind, solar, if the generation system has not been damaged, then we can have an exclusion. we will need changes in the language to permit that. >> we recognize the limitations of fema funding. we are asking for additional funding so we can get that flexibility and rebuild. you can discuss whether it is a good idea or not on the context of the merit of the energy and structure, but it is a bad idea to rebuild a system that is frail over again and spend taxpayer money on that. you will have to do it again. >> governor, thank you. everything i have heard about the concerns with the energy grid and setting it up, i echo with my colleagues. let me jump to health care because this is an issue i have heard the governor's talk about. canwe doing everything we do a dress the health care needs, if we have been destroyed, we have health care facilities that have been destroyed, what you need from us and are you happy with the federal response when it comes to providing that health care? we need changes in policies and the law. the match rate for medicaid is an arbitrary 45% to the territory. the services covered under medicare and medicaid are stuck in the statute because it is a territory. i have medicaid patients with cancer. if i'm a treatment for that patient, and that treatment costs $13,000, under the statute , the cms only allows a $1000 reimbursement for that patient. that means the central government is in at $12,000. the fee schedules for the hospitals and application for renewal, complete and accepted by cms, over five years old, we are back on a 1989 fee schedule for the hospitals. folks leave the territory and go to the mainland for services. aree who cannot afford it impacted and the central treasury of the government of the virgin islands has to subsidize that care and transport patients to the u.s. mainland and pay for their services. we want to work with the committee to make adjustments, we want to get the medicaid match rate adjusted. million eight00 years ago to spend over 10 years. unspention of it is because we cannot afford to put the dollars on the table to make the 45% medicaid match. we are saying wave it for three years, we can spend it out of that pool, remove the fiscal cliff. i have more people on medicaid because of the disaster, and we can cover it out of that a lot of pool. >> i share many of the concerns. the affordable gave puerto rico a block grant for a particular amount of time. million.pped at $350 that gave the illusion that we were spending about $1.65 billion. that money ends. aside from having the limitations of the storm, we are now heading on a medicaid cliff that is dropping us off from an billion to $350 million. we are asking to consider for a five-year pass -- a five-year number tocrease that $1.6 billion for two years, to have a hundred percent cost sharing for puerto rico. katrina, thene congress provided these waivers on the match and the additional support on the medicaid and medicare side. >> thank you, and thank you for letting me go over my time. i appreciate it. >> thank you, madam chair. lo, you recently canceled the contract with whitefish and called for an investigation. is the investigation still going on? >> i called for two investigations. called upon all the entities that can investigate to do so. we are committed to transparency and to finding out the truth. >> if the investigation discovers any look -- any wrongdoing, there will be prosecutions? >> of course. , you didary walker indicate that you stand by prepa's ability to restore the grid. in light of the ongoing investigation of the whitefish, perhaps there should be more oversight than what you had indicated. i want to note that i think is a good thing you are working with our national lab to come up with a more resilient grid and do all the kind of modernization that should occur for puerto rico. a state like hawaii, which is also an island state, is the kind of collaboration you are doing and the developments that are occurring as a result of what has happened to paris go, would have -- as a result of what is happened to puerto rico would have applicability to hawaii or alaska. you have those kinds of recognitions in mind? >> absolutely, senator. that is the baseline where we started. hawaii has done a bit of work in resiliency and renewables. i can have the written document with that. we have pulled on some of the work doe has done in conjunction with hawaii when they were putting that system together. i have been to hawaii several times working on the underground secondary networks and also taking a look at the integration of renewables as a relates to their overall system. between the work that is been done previously in the labs, the work that has been done specifically, there was a meeting at the white house where the hawaii projects -- we were going through the reports in the documents with specific regards on how to integrate things that were successful and those things that were not, with the virgin islands and puerto rico. >> i know hawaii has significant vulnerabilities should a disaster of the magnitude of a hurricane maria hit a wahoo -- hit oahau. >> i'm interested in how that can help hawaii. governor, we know the stafford act has some limitations on the funding you can get. i have a concern -- where would you list that limitation, there might be the unintended consequence of our power authorities not doing their jobs to maintain, modernize, and do the maintenance of effort. wehink it is important provide you with the opportunity to combat for us and ask for additional -- to come before us and ask for additional funds beyond what is in the stafford act. estimates, how much are you asking congress to fund in terms of the kind of modernization, resilience, etc., that you would like to see in puerto rico? billion in damage estimation? >> for one year? >> for the bulk of it. >> $17 billion? i know you hope congress will authorize that. do hope that funding to our current one year or over a pimco time?- or over a pimco of ofit would be over a period time. we would work with third parties to get third-party validation of how robust the damage was. we are also including and separating what it takes to put it back together and what it takes for it to be resilient towards the future. do you know if the trump administration is prepared to support your funding request of $17 billion? >> what we are asking is simple. congress has to make a decision on how they're going to act on the different disasters that have occurred across our nation. what we're asking is equal treatment. texas submitted their damage assessment as well. i am sure the other jurisdictions that have had damages will do so as well. i think you are empowered to put the guidelines of how that is going to work. it is my job as governor to make sure you have the best information available so you can positions. when i cannot accept is unequal treatment to the u.s. citizens in puerto rico. i am sure the governor would expect the same as well. we are doing a damage assessment, recognizing that this has been a huge catastrophe. had this storm gone to any other state, no matter how modern the system was, it would have been catastrophic. this is what we want to say. we do not want the conversation to be diluted by saying some of the parts world. storm in the0 history of measured storms in the atlantic. it passed right through puerto rico, leaving no place on altered. it was a slow storm, slower than the average storm. it was about 8 to 9 miles per hour. it is my job to make sure you have all the information and my expectation is that we get treated equally to all the u.s. citizens and all the other states. >> thank you. senator sanders? >> thank you, madam chair, for holding the hearing, and thank you to all of our panelists for your hard work on these circumstances. >> today's hearing on disaster relief is extremely important, but the work we have to do goes above and beyond the immediate disasters. let me start off, please everybody forgive me there is a short amount of time so i will be kurt and ask you to believe -- to be brief. that two months after the hurricanes, 50% of the people in puerto rico continue not to have electricity and many people lack drinking water. the virgin islands is 31% but now have electricity. in st. croix the number is something like 16% that have electricity. we are the wealthiest, most powerful country in the history of the world. do we really think we are doing a great job when half the people in puerto rico and 80% of the people in the virgin islands still do not have electricity two months after the storm? mr. walker? and i understand the difficulties, the tough terrain, do we really think we're doing a great job? >> i think there is a team of people between the federal government and prepa and the puerto rican government as well as the virgin islands that are working through the challenges associated with this. i believe under the leadership -- i believe in the leadership of the governor and the leadership of fema, they are mobilizing. >> i have all that. we are the most powerful nation on earth. should two months after these disasters, half the people in puerto rico and 70% or 80% of the people in the virgin islands not have electricity? we got the mission assignment on the 30th of september. this is not a mission that the core normally does. we do not have pre-awarded contracts and we have to go through an acquisition process to allow us to get the right capabilities to the island. that is what we have done. -- i is not a criticism understand it is tough stuff. all i'm saying is if somebody from oz was looking down, the united states of america, people on these islands are still living in misery, i think we must do better. number two, i want to say to the chair, i agree with much of her initial remarks. she did not mention two words, and that is climate change. my guess is -- who knows what tomorrow will bring. there is every reason to believe your islands may suffer even worse disasters in the future. i think we are all in agreement that it is insane to rebuild the way it was. we all agree with that. ask governor mapp. you mentioned some of the solar installations worked quite well. if you have the freedom to move the way you wanted to, what percentage of the virgin islands would be sustainable within 10 years? >> we started talking 30% by 2025 and before the hurricanes we had one third of that installed. we want to put 21 more megs in wind and additional solar. think -- what it be unrealistic to say in 20 years you could be 100% sustainable? >> i will not say that is unrealistic, i am hoping i will live another 30 and by then we are at 40% or 50% renewable. >> thank you so much for your hospitality. i know we had a brief roadside meeting. the mayor forank her hospitality when i was in san juan as well. now, you are the island of the sun. right now in puerto rico, about 2% of your electricity is generated by solar. by renewables in general. how does that happen? you talk about 20% being solar, that seems to be a conservative goal? term, we talkt about 20% to 25%. i am committed to renewables in puerto rico. we have beeneffort making with some of the stakeholders is challenging them to prove their technologies can be scalable to puerto rico. i am 100% backing renewables in puerto rico. >> madam chair, let me conclude by saying this. we are dealing with the immediate crisis. let us not forget. -- i ame familiar old more familiar with puerto rico than the virgin islands. it may be similar. you have in puerto rico a poverty rate of 46 percent, unemployment is twice the national average. health care is a disaster. rates inol graduation puerto rico and the virgin islands are near the bottom of the united states. but perhaps, this is an issue we have to discuss, puerto rico is dealing with an unsustainable debt and pension obligations. more than one third of that debt is held by wall street funds that are getting interest rates up to 34% on tax-exempt bonds they purchased for as little as $.29 on the dollar, is that correct? this is an issue this committee must deal with. >> thank you, senator sanders. senator manchin? >> thank all of you for being here. my heart goes out to all of you. i understand how tough this is. onould like to briefly touch the now canceled contract and i want to go into it because coming from the state of west virginia we do a lot of this type of work. the whitefish energy, a small company consisting of a handful of employees from montana. it was awarded a contract. i will go through a new -- through a few things in the new york times. contract,terms of the they charged $319 an hour per alignment, a rate 17 times higher than the national average. i understand in an emergency situation things are stressful. also the cost on the island. whitefish is billing $4000 an hour to rent a helicopter, twice the rate ongoing. they are charging more than double for daily meals, which is double what major league baseball players get. they charge to $30 for hotel rooms for workers. at when i see this thing, i understand how this could have happened so quickly. the request for the mutual assistance, which goes out immediately, usually when you're going to get hit and you have a high probability of getting hit you ask for this assistance, either from american public power association, edison institute, governor, i >> i called for the cancellation of the contract, even without the result of the investigation recognizing it was in the best interest of the people of america. you have to put it into context of where we were. there was a lot of mutual aid going to other areas. the virgin islands, florida, harvey. that the rfian with established, it was to attend to the considerations of the storm in the aftermath of irma, not after maria. once that process went through, we had alternatives with the court. we understood they were going to be aggressive so we can gauge on them. once we saw that that wasn't going to be enough, there was a solicitation in terms of that. i am a willing participant in this effort that investigations need to go on. whatever comes out of them, -- >> i'm not accusing i'm just in my, a disaster plan state of west virginia, we had disaster plans. i was subjected to flooding, i had very challenging state demographically, when you look at the geographic locations. we were already prepared. it seems like you would have reached out to the american public power association and the edison, being prepared because it you know that's the first thing that will go down. contractish -- this went out quicker than the request for help. and the professionals could have brought you a different rate structure. >> the ceo of the power authority will be in this panel he will be -- >> we will get to that. before, i have fondness for the islands. one of theeing said, panelists said you can't continue to do the same thing over and over. that youyour testimony will be bearing some lines and doing things differently. right now, you are priced about $.32 per kilowatt hour. great --roleum is a you are relying a great deal on petroleum and trying to reduce that. we try to work through something before. it's always a challenge because the local people would reject different types of things you felt needed to be done. with this disaster that we have had, are people more willing to understand we have to make changes to prepare for the next time we get hit? >> the answer is yes, this is why we are pushing more renewables. we want to work with u.s. doe. and how do we access natural gas. we are made a decision, going to not put all of the generation systems in the same location. . we want to have micro-grids, some of the property that we received, we want to use that for wind generation. the short answer is there is a lot of opportunity both for myself, my delegates, my legislature, to make the tough decisions to strengthen building codes, to change the way we produce and deliver power, to bring the price down, and type in our procurement system -- tighten our procurement system. >> the expertise that we should be able to give you with some of the things we have changed in technology. i know that sometimes you run into opposition because of the structure that you run your grid systems or your utilities. if we are able to break through that this time to get to where we can give you -- >> when 80% of the people on average can't turn on their lights, they are willing to do anything to get the lights back on. that's why we want the opportunity to get those changes. >> senator king. in thent to join welcoming of the delicate. i know a strong advocate for her constituents on the islands. i want to welcome the governors, i feel the discussion is elevated when we have governors on the panel. i apologize, i was at another hearing, i didn't hear your initial statement. islands on track to get the aid that they need? is it being a pact with puerto rico? what is the status of the federal aid? >> the support from the federal system has been good for the virgin islands in terms of how we responded to life issues. we are really working through fema on the shelter in place program. we are having difficulty there, the feds are putting more money in terms of $25,000 per unit. they want to restrict the amount for permanent repair at $20,000, we are trying to work that out. our presence here and your help is essential in terms of setting inde dollars and, changes the statue that permit more than simply rebuild as is. it's on track, but there is going to be a damage assessment and a request for aid. questions, technical i was fascinated by your testimony that some of the solar arms survived and others didn't, which indicates solar is survivable. in the photo of the wind turbines, the damage was broken blades. is there an assessment as to whether they withstood the storm? are broken blades the extent of the damage? >> that would be eight question i would defer to the governor. >> tell me -- were there windfarms that survived? >> there was devastation across some of the wind farms. you would see the blades come out of some of the towers, some went out. in terms of what the governor saw, we saw severe devastation. we saw other areas that were part -- >> the question i'm getting at is properly designed renewables are still feasible for the islands? even given the hurricane risk? >> of course. >> how about rooftop solar? >> it did much better in puerto rico. there is some mitigation strategy about putting -- walls in the side of it. those turned out to survived very well. >> rooftop did well? of in termsbecause of the reconstruction, we are going to work with the water and power authority and use the roofs to create micro-grids for the schools and put solar panels on them. >> i think we are all agreed that it doesn't make sense to a 1980's grid when we have renewables, the economics are so much better. who makes that decision? >> you do senator, by changing language and staffers. changes inaking the the stafford act that permits it, or in the appropriation and set aside the money for the virgin islands and puerto rico if you authorize. >> that's the second time you have anticipated my question. clearly we need to amend stafford so it's not simply we need to rebuild what was there before. there are several bills being reconsidered. even if stafford is amended, who's going to make the decision? the power authority of the islands? >> once the authority is in place and the dollars are in place, we will work with fema, the army corps of engineers through the process that every other state goes through in setting up what the new profile should be. the u.s. doe and the virgin islands have been great partners in the last five years, that's how we know how renewables can work. we will work with the federal agencies to make the right decisions. >> final technical question for both islands. the transmission lines went down? so that's a vulnerability. that gets back to the idea of distributed micro grids so you are not so dependent upon an underground transition. >> it certainly does. in puerto rico, most of the generation is down south, most of the consumption is in the north. you have a lot of efficiency, it is an opportunity to flip that script. islands, u.s. virgin time that thefth united states government is bank to rebuild the power distribution system. plus million00 dollars under construction. putting it underground in the main corridors and having the micro grids make the system a lot more resilient, that could withstand these 185 mile an hour storms. >> i think this is an extraordinary opportunity for our country to see what a modern grid can and should look like. thank you. panel thata second we need to get to. i do think that we have great information. have hosts of additional questions that i would like to ask each of you. i'm prepared to stay for another hour and do a second round with this panel if colleagues want that. otherwise, i would suggest we move to panel number two. gentlemen, thank you, governors, we appreciate your leadership. thank you.

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